Planning a Journey in the UK by public transport

You can obtain an itinerary and timetable for door-to-door journeys between any two places in the UK, using buses, trains and walking (or by car) on the Transport Direct website. This is an excellent resource which also offers live travel updates, train fares information and much more. 

Another site which does a similar job is Traveline. 

Train travel from Milton Keynes

The franchise for local train services is run by London Midland who operates the services on the routes between here and London, Northampton, Coventry and Birmingham, and stations along the Trent Valley route between Rugby and Crewe.  London Midland also operates the local Marston Vale stopping service to Bedford.

In addition to London Midland services, there is an hourly service - operated by Southern - providing direct trains from Milton Keynes to Kensington Olympia, West Brompton (for Earls Court), Clapham Junction (connections to most stations in the south of England) and East Croydon (connections to stations to Brighton).  

It is worth pointing out that Group Save tickets are available on off-peak London Midland services, which means 3 or 4 adults travel for the price of 2, and up to 4 children travel for £1 each.

Through tickets from Milton Keynes stations to Paris and Brussels can also be booked via a link on the London Midland website.

Virgin operates the inter-city services on the West Coast Mainline serving London, the West Midlands, the North West and Scotland.  Travel by rail to other parts of the country involves changing trains usually either in London or Birmingham.    

Travelling to Europe by train and ship

Mark Smith (“The Man in Seat 61”) is the best person to consult on finding your way around Europe (and beyond) without using planes.  Mark lives in Buckinghamshire and has devised a wonderful website which contains a wealth of information about timetables and fares country by country. 

Bus and Coach travel in and around Milton Keynes

Arriva is the operator of most of the local bus services in Milton Keynes.  Neighbouring towns are served by a variety of operators: 

Stagecoach operates two limited-stop routes with regular services:

X4, an hourly service which connects Milton Keynes to Northampton, Wellingborough, Kettering, Corby and Peterborough.

X5, a half-hourly service which connects Milton Keynes to Buckingham, Bicester and Oxford in a westerly direction and Bedford, St Neots, and Cambridge in an easterly direction.

Both the above services also run on Sundays, but at a reduced frequency in some cases.  Timetables can be found here:

Virgin provides an hourly service (VT99) connecting Milton Keynes to Luton Airport.

A map of the bus routes around Milton Keynes and downloadable timetables can all be found here.

Long distance coaches connect Milton Keynes to many UK cities.  Most of the routes are accessed from Milton Keynes Coachway, a new coach station near junction 14 of the M1, which opened in 2010.    The vast majority of these services are operated by National Express 

Green Car Hire in Milton Keynes

If you need to hire a car, why not make the occasion an excuse for trying out a green car?  Visit the Green Motion website to find out more. 

Buying a new car

When the time comes for replacing your car, you have a great opportunity to make a choice which could reduce your own personal carbon footprint considerably.   The first question to ask is whether you need to replace it at all – could you use a mixture of public transport and bicycle instead, and perhaps hire a car when you do need one?  If you decide you do need one, then could you manage with a smaller, more economical one, and perhaps hire a larger one for the holiday (for example)?  

To help you to compare the fuel consumption and/or CO2 emissions of different types of car, have a look at the http://carfueldata.direct.gov.uk/  website.   

Also useful: http://www.car-emissions.com

You may be surprised at the very large choice of cars now available with emissions of 110g/km or below, which mean they are in the £20 (or £0 for the models with emissions below 100g/km) road tax bracket.